Tate’s Chocolate Chip Cookies
Bake: 350°F Toffee: 300°F Chill: 2+ hours (overnight preferred)
Ingredients
- Unsalted Butter: 1 large stick of butter divided – 175g for brown butter & 51g for toffee
- White Sugar: 150g
- Dark Brown Sugar: 160g for cookies & 47g for toffee
- 2 Eggs (room temperature): 1 whole egg & 1 yoke
- All Purpose Flour: 200g
- Milk Powder: 25g
- Salt: 1 teaspoon
- Baking Soda: ¾ teaspoon
- Maldon salt: 1 teaspoon
- Vanilla Extract: 2.5 teaspoons
- 50-75% Dark Baking Chocolate Bar (Chopped): 4oz
Helpful Gear
- Candy thermometer (or thermometer) for toffee
- Parchment-lined baking sheets
- Stand mixer or mixing bowl
- ¼ measuring cup
Recipe
- Make Toffee – add 51g unsalted butter, 48g dark brown sugar, and ½ teaspoon of salt to a small saucepan and turn to medium/high heat. Continuously whisk until mixture is homogeneous and reaches exactly 300F°. Immediately pour contents onto a parchment lined baking sheet and spread evenly. Once toffee has cooled completely, break with the back of a wooden spoon into small pieces and save for later.
- Make Brown Butter – Cube 170g of unsalted butter to a pan on medium heat. Continuously scrape sides and bottom of pan until the milk solids become a nice golden-amber brown. Let cool to room temperature.
- Toast Milk Powder – Spread 25g of toasted milk powder to a parchment lined baking sheet and bake at 350 F for 5 minutes or until most of the milk powder is a golden brown.
- Mix Dry Ingredients – In a large mixing bowl combine flour, toasted milk powder, salt and baking soda. Mix until mixture is distributed evenly. In a separate bowl mix white sugar and dark brown sugar and mix until mixture is distributed evenly.
- Make Cookie Dough – In a stand mixer or mixing bowl add the sugar mixture. Slowly stream in the chilled brown butter and mix well. Next, add one whole egg followed by one egg yolk and vanilla extract. Once contents are mixed well, incrementally add the flour mixture to the bowl making sure to scrape the sides and bottom. Lastly, add chopped chocolate and toffee to the bowl and mix well. Chill dough for at least 2 hours (preferably overnight).
- Prep and Bake Cookies – Preheat oven to 350. Once dough has completely chilled, remove from fridge and let thaw. Using a ¼ measuring cup, pack dough into cup and smack onto baking sheet. Bake 6 cookies at a time for approximately 15 minutes or until outside edges are crispy and the inner is slightly gooey. Sprinkle a tiny amount of Maldon salt on each cookie immediately upon removing from the oven and let cool.
Notes
- Try not to leave the saucepan once the toffee mixture starts to boil. The toffee needs continuous whisking to ensure it doesn’t burn (which can happen quickly if unattended). I would highly recommend a candy thermometer or even a normal thermometer to ensure proper temperature. If the mixture doesn’t reach 300° it will just be a caramel, and anything over will result in burning. Once cooled we are looking for a hard, brittle crack.
- Like the toffee, try to stay near the pan when the brown butter begins to simmer. Pull the butter from heat as soon as the desired color is reached. I like to pour the butter in a heat-proof metal bowl and stir it over an ice bath to cool the butter faster.
- Milk powder toasts very quickly and this should only take a handful of minutes. It will also toast unevenly and that’s completely fine.
- I like to sift my dry ingredients to ensure no clumps are in the final product. Not necessary, but I personally do find clumps in my dry ingredients. If you’re savvy in the kitchen, you can prep your ingredients while the brown butter is being made to save some time.
- Make sure the brown butter is room temperature. You risk scrambling the eggs if the butter is too hot. Chilling the dough overnight is highly recommended. This allows the butter to soak back into the flour making for a better final product.
- I find ¼ cup yields a normal sized cookie, but you can certainly use a bigger or smaller measuring cup. To make the cookies look more visually appealing, take a baking ring or heat safe cup/bowl that is slightly bigger than the cookie and place it over the cookie. Going in a circular motion shape the cookie into a circle. This needs to happen immediately after removing the cookies from the oven when they are still malleable. Sprinkle on the Maldon salt right after.
